There's nothing really humble about this computer mouse at all. I did it a disservice in the video by suggesting it had a 30 pixel sensor. In reality I meant 30 X 30 (900 pixels). It stores images and them compares them to determine movement based on displacement of reference points in the images.
It's a very good demonstration of how mass production can bring the price of a very complex chip down to the point where a complete optical mouse can be sold for a single pound.
If this video sounds a bit "formal" it's because I was just about to head out to do the first dress rehearsal and then full show run of the current show I'm working on. It always tends to make me step up a gear and sound a bit hyper.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
It's a very good demonstration of how mass production can bring the price of a very complex chip down to the point where a complete optical mouse can be sold for a single pound.
If this video sounds a bit "formal" it's because I was just about to head out to do the first dress rehearsal and then full show run of the current show I'm working on. It always tends to make me step up a gear and sound a bit hyper.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
Things are springing to mind.
Can you build an anti burglary type module out of one of these? Using the wheel tracker & that lense chip thing?
Do they make adult sizes, I wonder? =^_^=
Hey youtube, don't send me an email telling me that I can choose my "handle" (when I was perfectly satisfied with using just my name) and then sticking such nonsense as a @ at the beginning and a _ in the middle, neither of which are contained in my actual name!
This prodded me to go a little further with the "dead" wireless mouse I've had sitting here for a while. Applying a little prying force at the right spot finally got it open for me. The rotary encoder for the scroll wheel appears to be optical, rathter than mechanical. There's an LED on one side and a three-pin sensor on the other. A trio of switches, a crystal, an inductor, and two chips The plastic lens assembly is rather complex. The LED mounted to it is terminated on its own teeny little board that connects to the main board with a bit of 2-conductor cable, one side with a red stripe to indicate polarity! Instead of a chip there appears to be a small circuit board (a breakout board for SMD?) with 12 pins on it labeled KC and E243951 and Capella004. On the underside of the board is what I am assuming is the wireless chip labeled NRF A– 31512C. The crystal is marked 16.000. The inductor seems to be marked but I can't make it out.
This whole thing ran off a single AA cell. There are some other similar ones around here, still working. My lady prefers to not have to deal with those wires, which don't bother me at all. ๐
I wish that our dollar stores and Aldi's would carry anywhere near the amount of interesting junk that yours carriy…
Optical mice are pretty wild. Nowadays the cheapest optical mice like this are WAY better than ones from a decade ago — that one has a 30×30 resolution, but that was high end at one point! Many early ones were like 8×8! The fanciest ones today can be *a megapixel*. Literally higher resolution than early bulky digital cameras. Just needs a lens and a way to dump data onto storage and you have a digital camera!
I got a wireless one from Quality Save for 2 or 3 quid; it doesn't like wood grain but is fine with the grey cardboard from the back off a cheap notepad. Labelled Equitech.
am using the same one 4 years still good
When buying super cheap mice off ebay, you find that when using them, there are issues with tracking, this is all determined by that central chip, which sends light images to a digital signal processor inside it, it determines fine changes in the image and where the mouse should go on screen. In the super cheap Chinese mouses this entire chip is of an inferior quality and you end up with a cursor that skips or moves in jagged way.
Essentially the most important thing on the entire mouse is that central chip, is is the entire brains of the mouse. This is why when you buy a good quality mouse, it's worthwhile to repair it. The areas of a mouse that fail are generally the clicker buttons, the easiest way to repair these is to buy a cheap ebay mouse, take the copper flex pin out of it's switch button, and replace that with your highly used copper flex contact inside your mouse button.
Some people suggest trying to re-bend the copper, but I find it doesn't work that well, other people suggest entirely desoldering the mouse clicker button and replacing it with a new one, this also isn't necessary, you only have to open the mouse button and remove the small copper flexing piece, and put a new one in from an unused mouse (a cheap Chinese mouse is good enough to use for parts).
With this method I have had a high quality gigabyte mouse last 15 years, still working just fine.
Mouse'on'a'chip
I bought one of these recently to use in my shed with an old computer…it's been flawless over the winter! one fookin' pound….
as a rule of thumb, I always carry a mousepad in my bag in case I need to use the mouse on glass, also add that I use a gaming mouse all the time, those don't track on just anything because they're optimized for speed and resolution, not for surface compatibility, so they don't tend to track the best on smoother surfaces
one thing i notice these days is that a lot of mice use IR LEDs now, could it be a wavelength thing?
the early mouses needed a custom mousepad because it's essentially the same mechanism as the opto-mechanical mouse but instead of it happening internally, you moved it to a mousepad. and yes, they did cost a fortune, not only because the first ones were made for Sun microsystems, these mice had different mousepads per generation, so you couldn't intermix them
I wish i could buy a wireless ball mouse, because those work on any surface without problem
literally a whole mouse on a chip
I mean computer mice are incredible not only is that a photosensor but its also a microprocessor too! and not just some little microcontroller with one ALU for basic controlling and comparing that thing process images its got to have ALUs, FPUs. Heck it could even be a small GPU that does parallel processing! but considering that this is a lower DPI and lower end mouse i doubt it will have anything that sophisticated maybe on a gaming mouse
I still remember when I had to open the mouse every now and then to clean the ball and the axles sticks..
I could not agree more with Clive's conclusion: spectacular in its simplicity. It brings to mind Friedman's classic "I, Pencil" discourse about the creation of the humble pencil. No one really knows how to do it all, yet somehow it gets made in huge numbers and sell it for next to nothing, which Friedman argues is how invisible market forces work. Were Friedman still alive, he could update his talk by using this mouse as a more modern example of market forces in action. How does ANYONE make a profit selling and shipping it, yet here it is selling for one lousy Pound! Just staggering!